About

I’m the willful type.  I’m also very much a proponent of the power of the human mind, heart and spirit.  I’ve also been dealing with clinical depression for my entire adult life (and likely earlier, though I was not diagnosed until I was 18).  Through the years I’ve utilized a panoply of coping mechanisms and treatment options.  And I discovered that medication is not the way for me.

I used to live in Northern England.  My first winter there I discovered a new (to me) form of depression – Seasonal Affective Disorder.  Having moved there from the sun-drenched climes of Florida and Louisiana, I had not experienced the worsening of depression that can happen when the sun is taken away.  It was during a particularly dark winter that I went on medication for my Depression. I found that the Cipralex  helped my symptoms, but by numbing me. So, I wasn’t particularly depressed, but I wasn’t particularly…. anything.  And my libido?  Hello panda bear me…I just couldn’t be bothered to have a drive.  Any drive.  So, I was happy to come off of the meds after 6 months, when the sun began occasionally peaking out of the gray skies and I felt I could begin coping again sans meds.

Coping with Depression is very difficult.  It’s an ongoing war within ourselves that we never really win.  But we can win individual battles.  We can win days.  We can reduce some of the battles from total bloodbaths to skirmishes. We can win back bits of our Selves so that we can go on and live, and love, another day.

This blog will touch on my own methods of prevention, coping, and, when need be, simply weathering the storms of Depression.  I welcome your comments, and I hope that something you find here can help you on your own way as a Depression Warrior.

~k@